Dehumanizer

This article is about the album by Black Sabbath. For the album by Dance or Die, see Dehumanizer (Dance or Die album).

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Dehumanizer is an album by British heavy metal band Black Sabbath released in 1992. It is the first album in over a decade to feature Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice.

Both lyrically and musically, it is considered one of Sabbath's heaviest albums. Song themes vary from a computer worshipped as a god, to televangelists, to individualism.

Although the band lineup is the same as 1981's Mob Rules, the musical direction is very different - not only because of the aforementioned heaviness, but the songs are also darker, more pessimistic and more intense than in every earlier Sabbath album. It was a dramatic, and to some, welcome return from their previous album, Tyr.

Ronnie James Dio himself would follow this musical / lyrical direction in his next two albums with his band Dio, Strange Highways (1994) and Angry Machines (1996).

A version of this album was also recorded with former frontman Tony Martin on vocals. Dio considered leaving the band for a very brief time after his vocals were already finished, and the rest of the band brought in Martin to re-record them. Dio returned to the sessions shortly thereafter and his version was used in the end. The version with Martin supposedly still exists, but a circulated bootleg has yet to appear.

Commercially, this album is regarded as a resurgence for Sabbath. The album reached the Top 40 in the UK.

This incarnation of Sabbath ended when Ronnie James Dio abruptly quit the band upon guitarist Tony Iommi's suggestion that the band open for Ozzy Osbourne in Costa Mesa at the end of his 1992 tour. Dio and Osbourne had a history of animosity and Dio said that Sabbath should not open for any band, much less his 'rival' (and the band's former frontman) Ozzy Osbourne. The band replaced Dio with Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford for these two Costa Mesa shows and, on the second night, they performed four songs with Osbourne as well. These shows were recorded in their entireties and are now widely circulated as audio and video bootlegs.

It is somewhat unclear as to whether this album was supposed to be a one-off affair or the beginning of a true reunion of this Sabbath line-up. Dio's contract technically ran out at the end of the album's tour (allowing him to quit the band in response to Tony Iommi's desire to have the band open for Ozzy Osbourne) which would suggest that future albums were not meant to be. However, Iommi also formally fired the other three band members (including twice firing singer Tony Martin) which would indicate that he never really intended to bring them back. It has been suggested that the album was officially a one-off effort but that the band members would continue if they found they could co-exist well enough to do so. According to Ronnie James Dio, the band could not get along sufficiently as the members' personalities and egos had not changed over the previous decade.

Track listing

All songs written by Geezer Butler, Ronnie James Dio and Tony Iommi.

1. "Computer God" – 6:10
2. "After All (the Dead)" – 5:37
3. "TV Crimes" – 3:58
4. "Letters from Earth" – 4:12
5. "Master of Insanity" – 5:54
6. "Time Machine" – 4:10
7. "Sins of the Father" – 4:43
8. "Too Late" – 6:54
9. "I" – 5:10
10. "Buried Alive" – 4:47
11. "Time Machine (Wayne's World Version)" – 4:18 (Not on the UK release)

Credits

• Ronnie James Dio – vocals
• Tony Iommi – guitars
• Geezer Butler – bass
• Vinny Appice – drums
• Geoff Nicholls – keyboards
• Mack – producer, engineer, mixer
• Darren Gayler – engineer
• Stephen Wissnet – engineer